Virginia Wynette Pugh, 5 May 1942, Itawamba County, near Tupelo, Mississippi, USA, d. 6 April 1998, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Wynette is primarily known for two songs, Stand By Your Man and D.I.V.O.R.C.E., but her huge catalogue includes 20 US country number 1 hits, mostly about standing by your man or getting divorced. After her father died when she
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18 March 1938, Sledge, Mississippi, USA. Charley Pride was born on a cotton farm, which, as a result of his success, he was later able to purchase. Pride says, My dad named me Charl Frank Pride, but I was born in the country and the midwife wrote it down as Charley. Harold Dorman, who wrote and recorded Mountain of Love, also hails from Sledge and wro
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Tanya Denise Tucker, 10 October 1958, Seminole, Texas, USA. Tuckers father, Beau, a construction worker, and her mother, Juanita, encouraged her fledgling musical talents. Her early years were spent in Wilcox, Arizona, before moving to Phoenix in 1967. Her father booked her to perform with visiting country stars on stage at local fairs. Never one to consider that some
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14 January 1937, Beaumont, Texas, USA. Discovered by songwriter Jack Rhodes, Spears first record, as Billie Jo Moore, Too Old For Toys, Too Young For Boys, earned her $4, 200 at the age of 15. Despite appearances on The Louisiana Hayride, she did not record regularly until she signed with United Artists Records in 1964. Following her producer, Kelso Herston
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Muriel Ellen Deason, 30 August 1919, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. The family relocated to Humphries County but returned to Nashville in 1928, where Deasons father, who played guitar and sang for local dances, worked as a brakeman for the Tennessee Central Railroad. She grew up singing in the church choir, learned to play guitar and in 1934, she dropped out of school to w
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Loretta Webb, 14 April 1935, Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, USA. Lynn is a coalminers daughter, being the second of the eight children of Ted and Clara Webb. She is one-quarter Cherokee and her name came from her mothers fondness for movie star Loretta Young. She was raised in a small shack during the Depression and was attracted to country music as an 11-year-old, wh
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Lynn Rene Anderson, 26 September 1947, Grand Forks, North Dakota, USA. Anderson, the daughter of country songwriters Casey and Liz Anderson, was raised in California. She started performing at the age of six, but her first successes were in horse shows. Her quarter horses amassed 700 trophies and she won major awards as a rider at shows all over California. In 1966, recordin
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Dorothy Marie Marsh, 11 October 1932, McMinnville, Tennessee, USA, d. 4 September 1991, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. The eldest of 10 children, West worked the cotton and sugar cane crops on the family farm as well as looking after her younger siblings. Country music was popular with her parents and she first learned to play guitar from her father. She completed a college educ
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Yvonne Vaughn, 10 November 1949, Mount Airy, North Carolina, USA. Fargo is the daughter of a tobacco farmer, and she sang in church as a child. She became a schoolteacher and was discovered by her future husband, record producer Stan Silver, singing in a club in Los Angeles. She first recorded in 1969, but her success started once she had signed with Dot Records in 1971. She
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Constance June Meadows, 14 August 1941, Elkhart, Indiana, USA. Raised in West Virginia and Ohio as one of 14 children, Meadows longed to be a country singer and taught herself to play the guitar while in hospital recovering from a leg injury, caused by an accident with a lawnmower. She sang at local events as a teenager and appeared on several radio and television shows. She
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25 December 1948, Houston, Texas, USA. Raised in Oceanside, near Los Angeles, California, Mandrell comes from a musical family: her father, Irby, sang and played guitar and her mother, Mary, played piano and taught music. At the age of 12, Mandrell demonstrated the steel guitar at a national convention and then worked in Las Vegas with Joe Maphis and Tex Ritter. By her teens
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25 February 1932, Shreveport, Louisiana, USA, d. 10 December 1996, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Young was raised on the farm his father bought just outside Shreveport and learned to play the guitar and sing country songs as a boy. Greatly influenced by Hank Williams (in his early days he was something of a soundalike) and while still at school, he formed a country band and beg
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Lawrence Hankins Locklin, 15 February 1918, McLellan, Florida. d. 9 March 2009, Brewton, Alabama. A farm boy, Locklin worked in the cotton fields as a child and on the roads during the Depression of the 30s. He learned to play the guitar at the age of 10 and was soon performing on local radio and at dances. His professional career started in 1938 and after an interruption fo
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3 April 1928, Shelby, North Carolina, USA, d. 17 November 2003, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. If loneliness meant world acclaim, then Gibson, with his catalogue of songs about despair and heartbreak, should have been a superstar. Considering himself a songwriter who sings rather than a singer who writes songs, Gibson is best remembered as the author of three standar
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12 August 1927, West Plains, Howell County, Missouri, USA, d. 28 October 2007, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Wagoner grew up listening to country music on the radio, particularly the weekly Grand Ole Opry broadcasts. He learned to play the guitar at the age of 10 and, owing to his fathers illness, his education was curtailed in order that he could help with the farm work.
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